


Egress

by Whispering_Sumire



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Arthur Finds Out About Merlin’s Magic (Merlin), Devotion, Everything Hurts, Ficlet, Gen, Heavy Angst, Short One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22002892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: "My King," Merlin murmurs, "myfriend, I am yours. All I am is serving you, I cannot conceive of being anything else. To protect you and those you love, to keep you safe, it's more than just my duty Arthur. It would be kinder to kill me, than to send me away."[Bring tissues.]
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 220





	Egress

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Suicidal Ideation in a weird form, and lots of thoughts about mortality, etc.
> 
> I was having a bad day, so I did a thing. Here it is. Hope you enjoy, but take care of yourselves first and foremost, xoxoxo

Merlin has always been willing, prepared, to die.

It's not a simple thing to think, to accept for oneself—death is daunting, to say the least. But he has been.

Ever since he entered Camelot, he'd known it was a possibility, and he'd thought he'd do everything in his power to escape it if it came to that, but then—

 _Arthur_.

For his love of Camelot, Merlin would do many things.

For his love of Arthur, Merlin would do all that and more.

Arthur is the only person in the world Merlin is—. Not loyal, loyal isn't the right word: he is loyal to Camelot and the knights, he is loyal to Gaius and his mother, to the dragons and to anyone, honestly, who might need his help. Devoted might be a closer sentiment, but even that doesn't cut quite deep enough.

So, when it finally happens (like he always knew it would) pretence falls to the wayside, and all of his carefully constructed masks fall. They do not crumble to dust, as if circumstance has shattered them, but drift away buoyantly, easily, as if he'd never needed them at all.

When he turns to his King, he does so as himself.

Shock glitters in the pale winter of Arthur's eyes. His knights, flanked around him, look just as startled, if not moreso. But Merlin has no care for them, wastes no attention on them. His regard belongs solely to Arthur.

Shock quickly mutates into furious betrayal on that bone-deep familiar face, and, softly, helplessly, heart a gored wound in his chest, Merlin smiles. For all that he aches so, so deeply, he feels no fear when he sways down to bended knee. He doesn't hesitate, even as he feels himself start to shatter.

He says, "I do not expect you to believe me, Arthur, my King, but I have only ever used my gifts to keep you safe. I'm sorry I never told you. I was born thus, and though I may have learned more over time, I've always had it: my magic. I never wanted to put you in a position where you had to choose between your father, your kingdom, or me. But, if I am honest, that was only ever part of it."

Righteousness incarnate, soaked in gold and impetuous kindness, is Arthur. Merlin has always thought him beautiful - prattishness aside - and he's always been bewildered by the insecurity that simmers in Arthur's chest, gnaws at him. He might've hated Uther for that alone, had the man not already been such a ruthless tyrant.

Arthur's wrath is striking, cheeks rose-fevered, hands curled into white-knuckled fists, teeth bared, ferine, snarling. Merlin's honestly surprised he hasn't lifted his sword already, enraged as he is.

"I was selfish," he confesses, guileless. "At first, I did not want to die. And then I did not care if I died, so long as I didn't have to lose you."

Arthur's chest heaves with hitched, reckless, panting breath, like there's more air in these woods than his lungs know what to do with. Gwaine, Merlin notices distantly, looks sick, something close to horror curling in his eyes. Percival seems to have turned to stone. Elyan and Leon are wide-eyed and grim-faced respectively.

"Leave," Arthur hisses, which, for a wild moment, seems utterly inane.

"What?"

 _"Leave!"_ Arthur bellows, lunging forward in his ire—but, still, his sword-tip remains pointed toward the ground. "I banish you from Camelot. You are never to return to my kingdom or my sight, _sorcerer,"_ that last word is spat, like poison, like a curse, like a deadly, serpentine thing.

It is, Merlin supposes. To Arthur.

His heart thuds dully in his chest, he feels hollow, numb, but his voice remains surprisingly steady when he answers.

"No."

Arthur's eyes flash and now, _now_ he lifts his sword: it lurches upward in a slicing arc that's so close to clumsy Merlin's heart is inspired to bloom a profound agony that's piercing roots ensnare his gut, shred him to bits.

"You dare defy your King?" His voice is sharp, resounding, _angry._

"My King," Merlin murmurs, "my _friend_ , I am yours. All I am is serving you, I cannot conceive of being anything else. To protect you and those you love, to keep you safe, it's more than just my duty Arthur. It would be kinder to kill me, than to send me away."

Gwaine shudders, sheathes his sword, and bows his head, shaking under the force of it all. Percival's facade seems to crack, and his eyes melt into something pained, distressed. Elyan's not much better, and Leon—Leon's grim determination doesn't shift, but he does turn and stalk away, as if there's only so much of this he can bear. Merlin wonders where on earth he's going.

"Then it is all the more fitting a punishment," Arthur says, sword still poised to cut off Merlin's head in one sweeping, lithe movement. A simple flex, curve, arch of muscle and sinew, the hiss of metal grating against the wind: that's all it would take. He knows this viscerally, he has seen Arthur here before. His throat aches, straining. He'd much rather lose his head than all that he loves, but he has a feeling Arthur will grant him no such mercy. "Is it not?"

"Make it an order," Merlin breathes, and it feels like he's flirting with devastation.

No one points out that Merlin never follows Arthur's orders. Now isn't the time, this is not the place.

Oh, he would've so preferred death. He was prepared for it. Part of him, right now, _wants_ it.

 _Please,_ he wants to chant, to beg, to pray. _Please, not this, anything but this._

Arthur's brow is furrowed, throat working convulsively, and his red-rimmed eyes look glassy, nearly crazed, nearly crying. Merlin did that, with his lies and his magic; a very melodramatic part of himself whispers that he did that just by being born.

He can be no less than what he is.

"As the King of Camelot, I, Arthur Pendragon, hereby order you never to set foot in my kingdom again. Furthermore, I decree that you shall never allow yourself to be seen by me or my knights—from this day onward, you are as good as dead to us. You are no more than a ghost."

Merlin sighs, and pushes himself to his feet, brushing off his knees. He should be unsteady, he just had his whole world ripped out from under him by the man he loves, has loved, will always love, with everything that he is.

"I would've burned for you, Arthur," he says, quietly, but it almost echos, tangling with the branches, reverberating, surrounding them all (that seems to be the last straw for the rest of the knights, Elyan turning swiftly on his heel and following Leon in leaving, Percival squeezing his eyes shut with a grimace, and Gwaine gasping something that sounds dangerously close to a sob), "I suppose this will be no less painful."

It will be torture, is what it will be.

Numbness curdles within his bones, white-noise travelling through the fissures in his heart, blood rushing against his ears, cheeks boiling with something not-quite ashamed, embarrassed, disappointed. Despair tastes a little bit like copper on his tongue, saturates him, exhausts him.

"Leave," Arthur says again, full of disgust, like he can't bear the sight of him, can't bear him at all.

Too much of a burden.

"Alright," Merlin says, lightly, like it's a game instead of what it is: like he's just been told to go fetch something, and he'll be returning to them with twigs in his hair and mud cached in his boots, laughing at their jeers and sniping right back, all of them smiling with good humour and an easy, brotherhood camaraderie.

The lie helps, it carries him for a handful of miles before it begins to disintegrate around him to the tune of a thunderstorm on the horizon.


End file.
